Viewpoint

For a decade the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project has, through its research, obtained consensus from experts about the technologies that most impact teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. NMC Horizon Project research, shared in its annual NMC Horizon Report > Higher Education Edition and other NMC Horizon Project publications, also identifies metatrends and global challenges for education--providing some important perspectives and context for campus technology planners. CT talked with NMC CEO Larry Johnson about the latest list of metatrends from the NMC Horizon Project.

In May 2011, WCET announced the receipt of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to begin work on the Predictive Analytics Reporting Framework. Now, a federated dataset has been created and PAR researchers have already begun to analyze the data, looking for variables affecting student performance and success. Here, WCET Executive Director Ellen Wagner comments on this milestone for the PAR Framework and on plans to expand the database to increase opportunities for sharing predictive analytics more widely.

Virtually everyone who works at an academic institution has experienced the complexity, uncertainty, and sometimes turmoil that has resulted from the collision of the new and evolving digital media world with a system of copyright that was originally created for more traditional media. Ray Uzwyshyn, director of online libraries for the American Public University System--with 104,000 all-online students--sees these challenges often and suggests that it’s time to rethink digital copyright assumptions.

CT asked media industry pioneer David Tochterman about a unique LA Semester program based at Syracuse University’s West Coast-Los Angeles campus that gives entertainment media students real-world, onsite exposure to the entertainment industry capital while using new media to model professional communications and industry trends.